Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Political significance of the COP Presidency

COP has always been the buzzword of the international climate negotiation, especially during November, when COPs are usually held. Knowing that COP is the platform where all parties come together to discuss and negotiate matters pertaining to the UNFCCC, it is easy for us to gruel on the content of the debate and oversee the importance of the backbone of COP – the organizational side of it.



“How to COP”

An interesting thing to note is that the UNFCCC secretariat actually hosted a “How to COP”, a COP hosting workshop back in May 2013. The reason why hosting a COP is so challenging is because of all the sessions going on at the same time. The usual sessions of COP (the supreme decision-making body of the Convention) and CMP (the meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol) are held annually and the SBI (Subsidiary Body for Implementation) and SBSTA (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice) usually meet twice a year in conjunction with COP.

COP18 and CMP8 hosted in Doha, Qatar

With all these going on, the conference schedule is separated into two categories: open working sessions (plenary openings and “contact groups”) and closed negotiating sessions (informal consultations, “Friends of the President” groups, drafting groups, and more). A High-Level Segment, often featuring ministerial-level roundtable discussions, are usually held on the last four days of the conference.

COP presidency is rotated amongst the five United Nations regional groups, with the Western European and Others Group, African Group, Asia-Pacific Group, Eastern Europe Group, and the Latin American and Caribbean Group (in that order). A member of the group will be determined to make an offer to host the conference and an “expression of interest” will be submitted to the UNFCCC secretariat by the chair of the regional body. Then some fact-finding will take place to ensure that the host country is physically ready to undertake the task of hosting the conference.

So, how does a host affects the conference politically?

COP21 was held in Paris, France. With the EU going relatively supportive towards the UNFCCC, it is not a surprise that the Paris Agreement was able to be tabled at the last moment. In particular, the French presidency made the small changes of “should” to “shall” at the very last moment to ensure that the document was tabled. Although there are many debates on how changing the words reduce the developed countries responsibility in limiting their emission, I will not go into details on it in this article.

COP21 held in Paris, France


For COP22 and COP23, as the presidency are both from the global south, both have expressed strong commitments towards the Paris Agreement and the working of it. Especially in this COP where the Fijian presidency, as the first small island state presidency, drew a lot of attention and increased the urgency to the issue because small island states are affected the most by climate change. The Fijian presidency also strives to be more inclusive in this COP with the Talanoa spirit, but whether they have achieved it is another debatable topic.

Concerns were raised for COP24 with a Poland presidency. With a strong stance of protecting its coal industry, Poland being the president for COP24 might tone down the momentum that has been built throughout the past three COPs. Even though the Facilitative Dialogue will be held during COP24, nothing has been announced by the Poland presidency in its support of the Dialogue. COP24 will be a crucial turning point to test if the Paris Agreement will be capable of closing the mitigation gap. But it depends on the Poland presidency’s commitment towards facilitating the discussion instead of slowing it down.

Reference:

How to COP UNFCCC: A Handbook for Hosting United Nations Climate Change Conferences
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2015/dec/16/how-a-typo-nearly-derailed-the-paris-climate-deal
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-eu-climatechange-exclusive/exclusive-polish-bluff-in-eu-climate-talks-tests-blocs-patience-idUSKBN15I2N7